I'll start by explaining my previous experience with Amazon's only alternative promotion option, the free giveaway, which I did with my last book Pro Bono - The 18-Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate, which I did last year. I had two promotional periods, one for two days, and another for three days. The first one gave away a few hundred books, and the second gave away thousands, nearly ten thousand. It jumped the book to the top of the bestseller list for its category, and caused a few hundred real sales after the promotion period was done. It was a good start, and I did it a second time, generating thousands more giveaways and hundreds more sales. The second go-around was lower, but it was a good way to finish off my KDP Select program before going to a wider release to all the readers. This was without radio or blog promotions, just an entry in Pixel of Ink.
This method worked well, though I felt that there should be an alternative to giving away thousands of copies of one's books. The subject matter of Pro Bono was such that many people would spend the money to buy it, but they didn't learn about it until it was free, and at that point they got it without paying anything. I appreciate the hundreds of sales I got, but it's a bit frustrating when us struggling independent authors have to give away so many thousands of copies for free while the wealthy larger ones get their covers plastered all over the front pages of Amazon and other sites. In short, though I appreciate greatly all the help Amazon and Createspace has given me and other independent writers and publishers, I would like to see an alternative.
They are trying that alternative with Countdown Deals where your book is offered at a discount, and they list your book as on sale, as well as put a countdown on it, letting people know it's going to go on sale, and then how much longer that sale will be. The price then slowly creeps up until it's back at the normal price. The sale can go on for up to seven days.
I looked for other people's experiences before trying it myself. Oddly, I found very few people had written about it. I guess that's because it was new, but I'm still a little surprised. The few that I did read said it hadn't gone very well for them, and had little advice on how to make it work. I decided to try anyway with The Great Heist.
I wanted to set up my sale to begin the weekend before Thanksgiving. The logic was that the day before Thanksgiving is supposed to be the biggest travel day of the year, and that weekend has everyone returning, so they'll want something to read. When I went to set this up, Amazon said I couldn't start the sale until the day before Thanksgiving because of when I entered it into KDP Select. This seems odd to me, and frankly, I was very frustrated. I knew my sales would do much better if I could have the lead-up to Thanksgiving rather than through the holiday itself, and it seems completely arbitrary to make the person have to wait a while before they can enter something into the Countdown Deal.
But I figured that the deal included a lead-up promotion to the sale itself, so I went ahead and started it on the 27th and had it run through the whole holiday weekend. You are allowed seven days for this sale, and there are two sales you can do. Thinking this seven days was for both sales, and thinking both sales were the same, I set the first one for three days and the second for four. I didn't realize until it was too late that I could have done seven days on both sales, and one of them is for the UK while the other is for the US. Luckily, I got the one for Thanksgiving in the US.
I didn't see it listed anywhere special on the Amazon site during the lead-up or during the actual sale, but I'll be honest, I didn't look that hard. I was busy throughout the holiday. It might have gotten buried in all the black Friday deals, and this year everyone jumped on advertising early, so it could have gotten buried in all of that. This was why I had wanted it to run the weekend before, but Amazon's arbitrary requirement of waiting a certain length of time after signup didn't allow that to happen.
I did tell everyone I could about the sale, and I listed it on Pixel of Ink, but in the end, I only got 26 sales. That's it. I do admit that I made a few mistakes. I should have given up on Thanksgiving when I found out I couldn't sell the weekend before. I should have had the sale go on for seven days. And I should have looked closer at the marketing to see if Amazon was promoting it they way they say they will. However, judging from the experiences of others who have gone through this program, it seems I've had a standard experience.
What's worse, I can't take what I've learned from the experience and do another US sale. I'm stuck until the next 90 days, and even then I can only do it if I go exclusively with Amazon. When i did the free promotion, the reason I did two days and then three days was so I could learn from the smaller one, make improvements, and do better with the second one. This one's all or nothing, and it seems most people are winding up with the latter.
Don't get me wrong. I love Amazon and what they're doing for independent authors and publishers. Createspace is, in my opinion, the greatest thing to happen to literature since the printing press. I really mean that. But I want to see them follow up with better ways to promote. It seems that so far they have few ideas. When I first read that they had special promotional deals under KDP, I thought they meant advertising, banners on their web pages, special mailings... something like what the big publishers get to do. When I first saw that giving away free copies of the book WAS the special KDP promotions, I thought I must be reading it wrong. They have followed this up with "allowing" us to sell our books for lower price. This shows a lack of creativity on their part, and gives us few options.
There's another book buying company that does promotions so well, they should be used as the model. They are drivethrufiction.com. The way they handle it is that every month, an author gains a certain amount of points. These points are based on how many titles they have up, how long they've been registered, and how much they've helped the community. So when you give a review to another book, you get points. Sometimes they give you points for helping out on the forums, and just being a part of the community in general. I've gotten points for pointing out some glitches in the website. You can redeem these points by purchasing advertising time. This can be a banner on the top, on the side, written advertising with links, a listing in your specific category, etc. You can even send notes to people who have purchased your work to let them know you're releasing something new. This system is exemplary to independent artists, and should be used by all independent writing sites.
I'll be honest, unless KDP comes up with some better promotion plans, I won't be using it anymore; or at least I'll be getting away from it as soon as possible. I might try the free promo again for a book that I just want to get out to the public; especially if it's part of a series where they can purchase more books. I'm still very loyal to Createspace, and will sing the praises of Kindle and Amazon in general, but thus far, I don't see much use in their "promotional" deals.
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